SLU Honored as a National Leader in Character Development

The Templeton Guide: Colleges That Encourage Character Development, a guidebook recently released nationally, cited a number of programs at Saint Louis University for leadership in the field of character development.

Micah House, which takes its name from the biblical prophet who spoke against social injustice, was honored for fostering leadership and a sense of community among first-year students. The program enables students who live together on one floor of a residence hall to serve alongside the poor and disadvantaged and provides inter-disciplinary courses covering issues of peace and justice.

The Templeton Guide also heralds the University's Task Force on the First Year Experience, which included faculty and a student representative. The group examined the experience of the University's freshman students and made recommendations for strengthening it.

The First Year Experience program, the Service Leadership Program and the alcohol awareness program were singled out as well. The First Year Experience program brought to campus this year Tuesdays with Morrie author Mitch Albom. The alcohol awareness program provided intervention efforts and weekly workshops. The Service Leadership program involves giving students the opportunity to learn leadership skills and then apply them to real community issues by giving 300 hours of community service.

"Saint Louis University has made it one of its top priorities to make a student's first year at college lively, academically challenging and interesting," said Micah House Director Dr. Donald Stump. "The University has been wonderfully supportive of such efforts and currently is adding new full-time faculty positions in order to develop other initiatives for freshmen and sophomores."

More than 300 four-year public and private colleges across the country are included in The Templeton Guide. Individual programs were selected in 10 different categories. The guide is intended for high school students, parents, guidance counselors, college administrators, trustees, faculty and alumni.

Established in 1987, the John Templeton Foundation works closely with educators, scientists, theologians, medical professionals and other scholars throughout the world to support more than 100 programs.

The foundation has created a College and Character World Wide Web site, www.collegeandcharacter.org, which provides information on the initiative, links to the home pages of the colleges featured in The Templeton Guide and other features.

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